Infographics & data visualization turn data into stories

Guest post by Julia Reich
Principal & Creative Director, Julia Reich Design

Most organizations have important data to present to their clients, members, boards of directors and other constituencies. Yet who has time to read or understand the reports, charts and diagrams created by your overworked staff?

Infographics are a communication trend that’s all about displaying data in an attractive, easily digestible format. With their unique combination of images and words, infographics are a powerful storytelling tool. It’s a way to take all that data you’ve collected about the great things your organization does and use it for social good purposes – to illustrate timelines, histories, relationships, the impact of a program and much more.

Removing a barrier to understanding

Ceci Dadisman, the director of marketing and public relations at Palm Beach Opera in West Palm Beach, Fla., used an infographic to promote her group’s 50th Anniversary Season. She says, “Opera, ballet and symphony are such complicated art forms. We are always trying to explain it simply in a nonthreatening way. Infographics  are a good way to explain what opera is with some facts anyone could understand.”

Jeff Ferzoco should know. As the creative and technology director at Regional Plan Association in New York – an 85-year-old advocacy group focused on urban research and planning in the tri-state area – it’s his team’s job to sift through mountains of data and figure out the best way to arm policy-makers and citizens with the knowledge they need to move the conversation forward about a particular project.

“Busy people don’t want to spend too much time to unravel complicated information, so if it’s explained at a level that’s instantly understandable and emotionally satisfying, you’ll have a lot more success getting your message across. It removes a barrier to understanding,” he says.

Infographics for reports, newsletters, videos, blog posts

Nonprofits are using infographics in a multitude of ways, such as in reports, newsletters, with a blog post, or in a video.

The marketing team at Open Arms, based in Minneapolis – an organization that  cooks and delivers free meals for individuals too ill to provide for their own nutritional needs – created several infographics last year for their 2010 annual report.

Kelly McManus is creative director at Open Arms and Susan Pagani is the Communications Director. They say that scattering the report with several infographics was a strategic decision they made together. “We wanted it to be more accessible to everyone – not just those who read the entire report cover to cover. Before, it was onerous to read. This has brought a level of fun to it.”

Kelly and Susan state they made the annual report more engaging by mixing up the serious statistics that are required to be reported, with more quirky facts – such as how many cookies were baked. This warm, welcoming approach reinforces their brand as well.

How to get started when creating an infographic

To begin an infographic project, it’s important to determine at the outset what your overall goals are, who your audiences are and what message you want to convey. Find the story you want to tell with graphics, and mine your data to locate the facts that support that idea. You will also need to provide text that accompanies the graphics, such as headlines and conclusions.

McManus supports this idea. “Infographics are a team effort. We got started by creating an outline on what messages we wanted to convey and those certain things you have to report on as an NPO, and then there are things we bring in to warm it up in a way our audience would find inspiring. We worked together with different departments to obtain the statistics we needed. Finally, we sketched it out and started creating designs.”

Infographics as a way to boost your site’s SEO

The more compelling the information in your infographic, the more people are likely to share it, like it, mention it – so more traffic gets driven to that page, thereby boosting your page rankings.

By promoting your piece thoughtfully, you can increase the likelihood of this happening:

• Optimize with keywords: “Bots” can’t read the text in your graphic (typically a jpeg or png file), but any image inserted on a site can be optimized by adding a title, 3-5 sentence introduction, and “alt text” (that’s text you see in lieu of an image on a site if the image loads slowly) into the HTML code. Use the word “Infographic” in the title. The actual file name should be keyword-rich too (rather than some file naming convention you may use internally). Tip: Google *can* read content in a PDF, so consider posting an alternative file your audience can download.
• Incoming traffic: Since they are easily shared via email and social networks, infographics drive people back to your site to see the graphic in context to possibly learn more, or get a better, larger view of it. Make it easy for users to share the piece by adding the following buttons: Twitter, Facebook Like, Google +1 and StumbleUpon.
• Time spent: An informative piece on a topic with wide appeal makes a Web page more interesting, so visitors are more apt to spend time on that page – and that’s a good thing, according to Google’s ever-shifting page-ranking algorithm.

Measuring efficacy is tricky business

The nonprofit marketeers and designers I talked with agree that measuring an infographic’s success is difficult. Instead, Dadisman has a different set of expectations: “We knew we weren’t going to get direct ticket sales from it; it’s more of a mission to further our presence in the community and about opera  in general.” She admits, “It’s hard to measure ROI. The evidence is anecedotal. It’s more of a long-term effort to build brand awareness. We can watch the infographic make its way around the internet with very little effort after the initial posting, so we know people are sharing it and spreading the word.”

At Open Arms, McManus and Pagani agree. “Donations went up last year but we can’t pin it directly to our infographic efforts. We hear a lot of comments – people from other organizations are using the infographics we created to show their own nonprofit how to convey information for donors and volunteers in a way that hasn’t been done before.”

The value of data visualization

The ubiquity of mobile devices means more and more data streams are flowing all around us, with a need for that information to be processed, delivered and understood. And with people becoming more design-savvy over time, there’s a demand for visual clarity and accessibility. Infographics are a tool that can use data in an attractive and engaging way to provide value to your organization.

Dadisman appreciates the impact infographics have had on her marketing efforts and plans to create more in the future. “It is the vernacular right now. Most people are visual learners. The arts are perfect for this form of communication.”

Especially for nonprofits, McManus and Pagani concur that “Infographics make it possible to tell a complex story in a few words that people can grasp right away. They’re great for nonprofits to tell a  story that will resonate with your audience. Telling people their dimes are being put to good worth – that is the ultimate value.”

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Infographic illustrates how to post your way to Facebook success

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, Web publishers, marketers.

Pagemodo recently published a beautiful infographic that covers the basics of how content functions on Facebook.

And although your page might differ (always measure!), they’ve outlined some pretty useful places to start if you don’t know what works for your audience:

• Posts made on Facebook between 8 pm and 7 am get a 14% higher interaction rate.
• Caption this photo posts on Facebook get 5.5 times more comments.
• Posts with calls to action get 45% higher interaction on Facebook.
• Positive content on Facebook gets more likes, while negative posts draw more comments.

Post your way to Facebook success

Here’s the infographic on how to tailor your Facebook updates:

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How nonprofits can use infographics to demonstrate supporters’ impact

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, social enterprises, businesses, Web publishers, bloggers, social media managers, individuals.

People support your organization for one reason: They view your organization as the agent of change they seek.

If they had the resources, they’d make the changes they desire by themselves. But they don’t, which is why you’re in their lives.

So when you tell the story of your cause, you need to show how supporters ultimately create the outcomes.

Nonprofit storytelling with infographics

One powerful way to do this is with a set of infographics like the Best Friends Animal Society created.

What’s really great about this infographic is that it’s broken down into five separate infographics, which makes the information even more digestible.

Five tips for creating powerful infographics

Best Friends Animal Society does a number of things right with their infographic. Here are a few:

1. Keep it simple. The information should be instantly understood through pictures and words.
2. Make it beautiful. No one wants to share an infographic that’s ugly. Make sure you spend the money and hire a graphic artist who can create a beautiful infographic. (Here are 20 tools to create infographics, including our favorite, Canva.)
3. Make it easily shareable. Users should be able to share your infographic with one mouse click on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. If you use WordPress for your website, you’ll find a number of plug-ins that will add a sharing feature to images.
4. Put it everywhere. Make sure you post your infographic on your Facebook page, your Pinterest board, and even Instagram. This allows people who call these places their home to easily see it.
5. Promote it. Just because you build it doesn’t mean people will come. You need to have a marketing communications plan that uses your biggest assets, like your email list, to promotes the infographic.

Have you seen an effective infographic about a cause? Let us know in the comments section below!

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Infographic: Tactics to increase fan interaction

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, journalists, general public.

American Express Open Forum recently published an infographic of Facebook engagement stats and recommended tactics for improving engagement rates on your Facebook page content.

Although this infographic isn’t specifically for nonprofits, the data and tactics still apply to nonprofits.

Improve your Facebook engagement

Here’s a summary of the most useful bits from the infographic:

1. Post short updates – Updates with fewer than 80 characters get 23 percent higher engagement rates (sigh).
2. Post images – Photos get a 39 percent higher rate of engagement than all types of content on the whole.
3. Use emoticons – Using emoticons increase shares and likes by 33 percent.
4. Try caption contests – Asking fans to write captions to interesting photos increases comments by 550 percent.
5. Respond quickly – 25 percent of Facebook and Twitter users expect a response to inquires and complaints within 60 minutes. Facebook community guidelines help immensely with this!
6. Run a photo contest – Encourage fans to post cause-related photos for a chance to win something amazing. Note that a third-party app needs to be used for photo and video contests.

People first, tactics last

If your takeaway from this infographic is a plan for Facebook success, you’ve got it backward. Tactics should always come after:

1. Understanding your people
2. Developing clear objectives
3. Developing a smart integrative strategy

Have you guys tried these tips? What tactics have worked best for you?

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